Pink Baby Quilt

I made a quilt for a friend who is due at the end of February. This is a quilt that I made years ago. The stars are from a block of the month class that I took and I really liked that block so I made a whole quilt of them.

I bought the backing fabric at Cool Cottons during their “we don’t want to count it for inventory sale”

Backing fabric is a Kaffe Fassett. Quilt label is hand lettered with sharpie.

I had the whole thing pieced and sandwiched, and then I couldn’t decide how I wanted to quilt it. I tried some hand quilting, but I couldn’t get my stitches even. So the whole thing sat in the WIP pile for years.

There are lobsters and octopi!

In October my friend announced that she was having a girl. Finally this quilt could have a recipient, instead of just “oh I liked the colors together.” I was inspired by a quilt Sam Hunter showed off at PMQG. It ended up being pretty easy to quilt, and I really like how it turned out.

I actually showed it to my friend at Thanksgiving, because I wanted to make sure she didn’t completely hate it. (People can have very strong feelings about pink.) The baby shower is next weekend (and I’m hosting!) so it will head off to it’s new home soon. I hope the baby likes it!

Project Life

I have been doing Project Life since October. Project Life is a system of scrapbooking that is supposed to be a little faster and easier than traditional scrapbooking. The page protectors have the layout already made and you just slip your pictures and the coordinating cards into the pockets. I got all my materials at Joann’s and Michaels with coupons. There are also lots of freebie cards online. I’ve found a bunch of cute ones through Pinterest.

In October when I started, I really wanted to make some layouts for the weddings we went to this year. That was my jumping off place, but then as I was going through my things I found a lot of old pictures that I had printed but never done anything with. So I ended up making a sort of “catch up” album that goes all the way back to 2006. I really like this system because it lest you add pages easily even if they are out of order.

Meredith and Jordan's wedding

Jess and Daniel's wedding celebration

I scrapped most of the fall and winter using project life as well. The original idea was to have one layout be one week. The design A pages have eight 4x6 spots, so you could have one title card and then 7 pictures, one for each day. I am not doing that, but I did scrap on a semi-weekly basis.

One of my favorite :catch up" layouts. For the summer of 2010.

For 2015 I’d like to try and continue scrapping weekly or monthly. I am going to let it be pretty organic. So far, I haven’t taken any photos, and we are three weeks in. (Probably mostly has to do with the camera on my phone being broken.) Here is my title page for 2015.

I am using the Jade edition cards as well as scrapbook paper that I had that I’ve cut down. I am using a variety pack of page protectors as well as some regular scrapbooking 12x12 page protectors and some office depot letter sized page protectors.  

Another thing that I am going to try and keep up on for 2015 is making a list of all the books I have finished.

How do you keep track of pictures and memories?

Quilt UFOs

Image via Sam Hunter

A UFO is an Unfinished Object. I recently joined the Portland Modern Quilt Guild and this year they are doing a UFO challenge. At the start of the year we have to commit to the UFOs we will finish this year, so here is my list before I turn it in on Thursday.

1. Bunting Quilt 
2. Green/Purple/Black Triangles
3. Vintage Dresden Plates
4. Green Map of the States
5. Rainbow Stars
6. Empress Tiles
7. Pink and Green Pinwheels

Several of these are tops that are finished and are just waiting for the right recipient, or enough money to buy the batting and backing. The rest are blocks or pieces that need a little more work to get to completion. 

Follow along as I try to complete all of these in the next 12 months. Can she do it?

I have nine of these blocks that need to be turned into a top. 

Holiday Round-Up

Well the holidays have been a whirlwind of family and food and friends. We hosted Thanksgiving for 15 people and I cooked the biggest turkey I have ever seen.

The Table Before

The Table After 

Christmas was much more low key. We spent Christmas Eve with my family and Christmas Day C’s family came up and we went out for yummy Chinese food at Zien Hong (new favorite Chinese restaurant). I did make a buche de noel which was really fun (and yummy).

Family Picture!

Buche de Noel!

We kept the decor pretty minimal this year, Left the twinkle lights up from thanksgiving and had a rosemary tree on the mantel. I only hung ornaments that I had been gifted this year, and of course we displayed all the lovely Christmas Cards we received.

New Years Eve was a progressive party of awesome friends. First we went to one friends house for dinner. Then to another friends house for a pre-NYE/birthday party, and then back to our house for the midnight countdown. So much fun!

Cheers!

Home made New Year's Banner

Now I am ready to take 2015 head on. I haven’t been doing a whole lot of sewing, and I've been so busy with other stuff that the sewing I have done hasn't been documented. I want to try and be better about that in 2015. I am going to set a goal for myself to post here twice a month.

What are your goals for 2015?